Hand coverings typically fall into one of two categories, namely, gloves or mittens. The advantages associated with gloves include their aesthetic appearance and a certain degree of dexterity afforded thereby. However, because the fingers on the hand are isolated from one another in separate finger stalls, gloves do not always accomplish their primary function, i.e., warmth.
In contrast, mittens generally provide a single finger stall and a separate thumb stall. In this way, the warmth characteristics of the mitten are greatly improved over those of a glove since the fingers can share body heat within the air space of the single finger stall. The separate thumb stall is generally provided to allow a certain amount of gripping action when the mitten is worn. However, the reality is that this only provides a minimal amount of dexterity. Thus, mittens must generally be removed if one is to effectively perform activities requiring a certain degree of dexterity. Such activities might include golf, fishing, hunting, to name a few.
Accordingly, over the years, several mitten designs have included a slit opening across the palm portion thereof. Such designs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,404,453 to Lynn, 2,274,335 to Kennedy, 2,315,889 to Wells, 2,323,136 to Johanson, 3,299,441 to Slimovitz and 3,403,408 to Helfer. However, all of these prior art designs suffer from the same drawback, namely, the protrusion of one's hand through the slit provided in the palm portion results in approximately the top half of the mitten flapping freely. This top half of the mitten must then be restrained by the user in some fashion to prevent interruption of the activity requiring dexterity. Consequently, the use of such a prior art mitten often proves to be more trouble than it is worth to the user.